Avram Grant

If Avram Grant is as poor a manager as his flock of critics would have you believe, how convincingly would Chelsea have regained their title from Manchester United this season — tied it all up by Easter, surely — with a good one?

The lugubrious Israeli must have something. Since succeeding Jose Mourinho in September, he has supervised only two Premier League defeats — at Old Trafford in his first match and then the Emirates Stadium — and, in the last month alone, made substitutions that contributed to victories at Stamford Bridge over Arsenal and now United.

On the Champions League front, he has taken Chelsea as far as Mourinho did: to the semi-finals. Their chances, moreover, are all the better in Wednesday’s second leg against Liverpool for an own-goal which John Arne Riise scored under pressure from Nicolas Anelka, whom Grant had just sent on at Anfield. Yet still Grant is portrayed as inadequate.

Wherever the critics obtain their information, it is beginning to look about as reliable as an Iraq war dossier. Of course it is true, as in Tony Blair’s time, that a lot can happen in 45 minutes, and the second half of this match was certainly a case in point. What drama. Even Grant would have escaped blame had Chelsea handed Wayne Rooney the title on a plate as everyone could see it was Ricardo Carvalho who had erred.

Michale Ballack is one of those who have prospered since Mourinho gave way to Grant and in this match, for the most tragic of reasons, Germany’s captain smoothly reverted to the central attacking role in midfield; Frank Lampard would have been expected to occupy it but for his mother’s death on Thursday. Before discussing any other aspect of the victory, Grant referred to Lampard, saying simply: “It’s for him.”

At Everton nine days earlier, Grant had been sparing with the press and been criticised. Here Sir Alex Ferguson, as usual, declined to face the spinners, subjecting himself only to MUTV’s military-medium, and it was a particularly good inquisition to miss because surely one of us would have had the temerity to mention that the United manager had performed major surgery on his team with their own Champions League return — against Barcelona at Old Trafford on Tuesday — in mind.

It is all too easy, however, to ascribe the result to his changes. Not only were they reasonable on the grounds that Ferguson had to keep his players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Paul Scholes included, as fresh as possible for Barcelona — they did, after all, fatally run out of impetus at this stage of last season’s campaign and lost to Milan — and that the purpose of having a squad is to use it in precisely these circumstances, when three immensely important matches must be faced in the space of less than a week.

He picked an astute team in Barcelona. This went wrong. But you could put Ballack’s first goal more down to the unfortunate loss of Nemanja Vidic than Ferguson’s tinkering.At what Ferguson has so memorably christened squeaky-bum time, Grant’s condition was impressive. Ferguson ranted about the ludicrously perceived injustice of the penalty award: “If it goes down to decisions like that, we’re in trouble.” But he could tell his MUTV audience: “It’s still in our hands.” The pressure bears down. By this time next week, Ferguson’s United could be on the threshold of a glorious double or victims of apparent implosion. Grant’s Chelsea could be high-riding or history. What a game!